On Mon, Sep 20, 2004 at 03:02:49PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: > It is bad patent law which favours patent owners. It is fine to use > copyright licences to "correct" copyright law, but using copyright > licences to "correct" non-copyright law - be it patent law, gun > control law or nuclear technology laws - is not.
Why? What freedoms does this protect? Why should copyright not be used to protect free software from patent abuse, just as it's used to protect against "software hoarding"? I agree with what you say as a rule of thumb, just as "licenses which attempt to go beyond copyright law are probably also non-free" is a useful rule of thumb, but like all rules of thumb, we should be able to get to the root of the issue--why the rule of thumb is correct in each instance. So far, I don't see it here. -- Glenn Maynard
